We're losing a species every few seconds. We cannot put them back. If we change our mind and say, 'Oops, we made a mistake' - it's too late. This is the world we live with. W. S. Merwin More Quotes by W. S. Merwin More Quotes From W. S. Merwin Send me out into another life lord because this one is growing faint I do not think it goes all the way W. S. Merwin growing way thinking we travel far and fast and as we pass through we forget where we have been W. S. Merwin has-beens forget Every year without knowing it I have passed the day W. S. Merwin self fire death Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing. W. S. Merwin poetry ends lost My cradle was a shoe. W. S. Merwin cradle shoes But most love poetry is awful; nobody knows how to write good love poetry either. But that's not a reason not to write love poetry. Some of the best poetry ever written has been love poetry, and some of the greatest poetry ever written has been political poetry. W. S. Merwin good-love political writing I had hardly begun to read I asked how can you ever be sure that what you write is really any good at all and he said you can't you can't you can never be sure you die without knowing whether anything you wrote was any good if you have to be sure don't write W. S. Merwin knowing said writing The attempt to live that way, the attempt to treat everybody - it fails all the time - but the attempt to treat people as equals is a good attempt. It's a very good attempt. And there have been very few governments that have come anywhere near it in the past. The Greeks began to, the Romans began to - they both failed. W. S. Merwin government people past I offer you what I have my Poverty W. S. Merwin offers poverty In the time that I have been acquainted with this region I have become increasingly aware of it as a testament of water, the origin and guide of its contours and gradients and of all the lives - the plants and small creatures, and the culture - that evolved here. That was always here to be seen, of course, and the recognition has forced itself, in one form or other, upon people in every part of the world who have been directly involved with the growing of living things. The gardener who ignores it is soon left with no garden. W. S. Merwin garden rain rivers Certain words now in our knowledge we will not use again, and we will never forget them. We need them. Like the back of the picture. W. S. Merwin never-forget use needs My words are the garment of what I shall never be Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy. W. S. Merwin sleeves garments boys There is part of a structure in which every species is related to every other species. And they're built up on species, like a pyramid. The simpler cell organisms, and then the more complicated ones, all the way up to the mammals and birds and so forth. We call it 'developing upward'... The whole thing depends on every part of it. And we're taking out the stones from the pyramid. W. S. Merwin cells pyramids bird You grieve Not that heaven does not exist but That it exists without us W. S. Merwin doe grieving heaven There are aspects of human life that are not purely destructive, and there is a need to pay attention to the things around us while they are still around us. And you know, in a way, if you don't pay that attention, the anger is just bitterness. W. S. Merwin pay attention needs To succeed [,] consider what is as though it were past, deem yourself inevitable and take credit for it. If you no longer believe, enlarge the temple. W. S. Merwin credit believe past Through all of youth I was looking for you W. S. Merwin distance missing memories If there'd been a better-balanced society, where there were other ways of making a decent living, I think it might have been different. That's not the way this setup work. W. S. Merwin different might thinking The Divine Comedy is a political poem and when you say poetry is not about - he's always quoted out of context, that "poetry makes nothing happen," that doesn't mean you shrug your shoulders and don't try to make anything happen. And Dante felt that poetry was engaged, there was a point of view; it's not my point of view, it's orthodox medieval Christianity, and I have my troubles with that. He didn't feel that you could just rule out so important a section of life - we care about these things, and it's out of caring about them that we write poetry. W. S. Merwin caring writing mean If you can't bear what's happening to the natural world, if you can't bear the way we treat each other; if you can't bear wars, you just can't bear the whole idea of war, which is possibly unavoidable. But still, you resist it. Because you just hate our treating each other that way and causing that suffering. W. S. Merwin hate war ideas
